AUGUST 22, 2016
by Brett Smith
Scientists have identified the oldest
known living tree in Europe, a Bosnian pine dated to nearly 1,100 years old.
Located in the highlands of
Greece, the tree was dated using dendrocronology, a very precise means of
dating trees that involved analyzing tree-ring patterns.
"It is quite remarkable that
this large, complex and impressive organism has survived so long in such an
inhospitable environment, in a land that has been civilized for over 3000
years" Paul J. Krusic, a dendrochronologist from Stockholm University and
leader of the expedition that found the tree, said in a statement.
The tree, dubbed “Adonis” after
the Greek god beauty and desire, is among more than a dozen other trees of
similar age in a treeline forest high in Greece’s Pindos Mountains.
"Many years ago I read a
thesis about this very interesting forest in Greece,” Krusic said. “In our
research, we try to build long chronologies to construct climate histories, so
finding living trees of old age is one of our motivations. To age the tree, we
needed to take a core of wood, from the outside to the center. The core is one
meter and has 1075 annual rings.”
This tree has seen some
things
While older trees have been
discovered in Europe, these are yews, chestnuts, or other clonal trees like
them, which reproduce asexually. These trees are attached to the same root
system, and individual "trees" that sprout up typically last a couple
hundred years.
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